The currency of intimacy: Frank Warren’s Postsecret

Frank Warren has been in my life for more than a decade. I have been reading the secrets on Postsecret.com most every Monday morning Philippine time. It’s a very simple concept. People write their secrets on a postcard. They mail the postcard to his address. Frank scans and puts them on the blog once a week. When there are occasions like Mother’s Day, or Fourth of July, there are similar postcards mostly pertaining to what the upcoming holiday is . It’s very simple, but also very resonating. When the shows started, I always made it a point to see where he was going, to maybe, just maybe catch him when I was in the country in the same 3 hour radius he was going to be in. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened yet, however when I found out he was in Long Beach, I had to reach out to a friend that was near there and was going through something to maybe go see it, and hope that she liked it. She had been helping me with what I was going through at the time as well, and I felt like I needed to share something with her to help her through her stuff.

This friend, selfless as she is, offered to do Facetime or call me, and sent photos of the auditorium it was going to happen in. The show is very strict about turning off phones during the show itself, so she had to turn off. And honestly, I wanted her to enjoy the time she was there for herself as well. After, she even got in line for a long time having a book signed for me by Frank, and most amazingly, this:

When she was having the book signed, she turned on video call so I got to “meet” Frank. Thus the shaky, awkward face in the photo, because honestly, I got very weepy with just that “Hi!”. We both wanted to say more but the people were telling my friend to keep it short, and I knew if I was in line for a long time too, I wouldn’t appreciate a video call from several thousand miles away cutting into my time with Frank.

In as much as I felt the experience resonate with me, I was glad that she felt connected to it as well, and I felt closer to her with this new thing we have in common. Even if it is sometimes controversial, sometimes depressing, sometimes sappy, I do think secrets are the currency of intimacy. Intimacy is always a tricky thing. It leaves you vulnerable. You can get hurt. You most likely will shed a tear, either of happiness or of other things.

So thank you Frank, for bringing my friend closer to me in this distance, and thank you my friend, for doing this for me, and for yourself. I feel quite lucky to know you even more now. And soon, I will have the courage to send a postcard of my own, as soon as I find a post office here that doesn’t read postcards before I send it on.

What’s your secret? Can you share it with the world?